Dialogue Is Dead. So Now What?

Dialogue is dead

In the history of the planet, there has never been a time which even compares with the circumstances, technologies and possibilities for communication and dialogue which are currently available to us.  Overwhelmed by this abundance, we face the opposite of what we might have expected:  dialogue is dead.  

Algorithms and polarization

One point of agreement these days is that we are living in an era of widespread disagreement and polarization.  Computer algorithms exacerbate polarization by feeding our prejudices and cognitive biases with a steady diet of whatever we already like and believe.  The problem isn't that people disagree but that populations at opposing poles, fed with a constant diet of affirmation, have become impenetrable to contrary ideas.  Dialogue has become impossible.  We are bombarded with tweets and images and conspiracies reaffirming what we think we know, making us ever more convinced that we've got it right and of the wrongheadedness of anyone who would dare to think otherwise. 

The History of dialogue

For the last 3000 years or so, the intellectual and social development of Homo Sapiens has been presumed to be based on dialogue.  In Plato's Republic, we read Socrates' dialogue exchanges with lesser lights--question and answer, question and answer--leading us eventually to some consensus, insight, or enlightenment if not final, unanimous agreement. 

Can there be democracy without dialogue?

From the Assembly of the Greek polis to the Roman Senate to the British House of Commons and their numerous variations, dialogue and, more formally, debate were the presumed underpinnings of the system.  Dictatorship is government without dialogue.  Mob rule is dictatorship with a lower IQ. The 2020 US presidential debates were much decried as they quickly devolved into ramshackle exchanges of jibes and slurs.  They were the reductio ad absurdum of the incapacity of politicians to engage in an earnest exchange of ideas.  

I'm an ENTP

My guru once told me I was an ENTP.  Which sounded great, except that I didn't know what ENTP meant.  What I took away from my guru's elaborate description of personality types was "When I think I'm right; I think I'm right."  Isn't everyone an ENTP?  Apparently, my reaction proves I am definitely an ENTP.  I want to be challenged but that would require someone, like me, who is eager to debate vigorously and logically.  

There's a rule somewhere that if you don't get a joke, it's probably about you.  I don't remember that I ever said this, but I have definitely thought it:  

Debate inside academia

Over and over again, at academic conferences, I have heard the claim that the most dire of problems, from racism to genocide to misogyny, could be solved with an open discussion of the contingencies, a fulsome discussion, a serious debate, a conversation.   I've even used this gambit myself.  Yet, inside academia, if ever a debate becomes energetic, someone will sense the imminence of an ad hominem retort and propose that most abhorrent of all compromises:  "Let's agree to disagree." While the dogma of prevailing "isms" reigns supreme in academia, even diffident discussions of fine-tuning and specifics risk being condemned as confrontational, conflictual, or heretical.

"Free Speech" and the world turned upside down

Reading the headline that "Trump threatens to cut funding for colleges 'hostile to free speech,'" it seemed to me that the world had been turned upside down.  How is it possible that universities, the crucibles of free speech, were being accused of resisting exactly what "universities" are supposed to stand for:  universality?   The origin of the word "university" is from the Latin for "whole, entire." We need to distinguish between free speech and hate speech, but the possibility of vigorous debate needs to be preserved somewhere.

Woke and cancel culture

I have wondered aloud how "woke," an Ebonic term for being conscious of social injustice, has become derogatory--a right-wing locution to mock precious claims of discrimination and racism and anything that might be called politically correct. The devolution of the word is a good example of how even vocabulary is co-opted by polarized extremes, and language, the necessary ground for consensus-building, compromise and dialogue, has become the problem rather than the solution.

I have defended "cancel culture"--though the expression has, with overuse and misuse, become meaningless--on the basis of a need to distinguish between free speech and privileged speech. "Cancel culture" hits the news and becomes clickbait when someone wants something or someone to be canceled and that cancellation is likely to irritate, outrage or befuddle a significant audience.  The true malaise is that "cancel culture" is evidence of disbelief in dialogue.  It is evidence of an absence of the trust necessary for dialogue to happen. 

So now what? 

"Actions speak louder than words."  "Might is right."  Is this what we are left with?   

 

 

Should the Washington Redskins Be Renamed the Washington Rednecks?

The Washington Redskins' name controversy

Wikipedians have outdone themselves in outlining the multiple aspects and perspectives of the Washington Redskins' name controversy. Personally, I have always interpreted the expression "redskin" as a racist slur. However, despite complaints, protests and a number of court cases, "Redskins" has survived as the name of the Washington NFL team since 1933. Justification and defense of the name include the fact that some Native Americans support its use and even use it themselves as an object of pride. Additionally, the expression's origins are etymologically neutral and only took on negative connotations from the way the locution has been used.

 

How language evolves

As I've pointed out elsewhere, in the evolution of language, usage trumps definitions and origins. How a word gets used eventually becomes its meaning. "Redskin," particularly as it has been dominantly used in American culture, is an intentional disparagement. Nonetheless, we might ask if "redskin" could be reappropriated as have other insulting epithets over the years. For example, in the art world, the word "impressionist" was understood as a criticism until the painters to whom the disparagement was applied--Monet, Renoir, Degas, Cézanne, Matisse--began to describe themselves as impressionists. Similarly, words like "Yankee," "Jesuit," "Protestant," and "Suffragette" were originally intended as insults but have been reappropriated as labels to be proud of. In more recent times, members of the LGBT community have begun to self-describe as "queer" and "dyke." Even "gay pride" would have, not so long ago, seemed a contradiction in terms--which, of course, is why the expression exists and is paraded today.

Red skins and black face

As with Blackface (see Blackface and Best Evidence), there is nothing inherently immoral about the expression "redskin." The locution is racist because it has a long history of derogatory usage, and the insult has gone hand-in-hand with the mistreatment and genocide of indigenous peoples in the Americas.

Cancel culture

The first defense of "Redskins" to appear in my inbox was a video of a Pulitzer-prize-winning journalist  who described the call to change the name as "cancel culture."  Merriam-Webster traces the origin of the expression "cancel culture" to "#MeToo and other movements."  It seems impossible not to notice that the people decrying "cancel culture" are typically privileged communicators:  celebrities, office-holding politicians,  journalists in the mainstream media, established authors, the already famous and affluent in general.  As my guru has pointed out to me, there is a difference between "free" speech and "privileged" speech.  Being a blogger for over seven years now and having written 104 posts which have been viewed 50579 times, I recognize that I am no competition for the Kardasians nor, at the other end of the spectrum, for Desmond Cole who reports that for two of his pieces as a freelance journalist writing for the Toronto Star: "each one had earned well over fifty thousand views"  (Cole, Desmond. The Skin We're In [p. 73]. Doubleday Canada. Kindle Edition).  In short, I appreciate the difference between "free" speech and "privileged" speech.

If you already enjoy some notoriety or you have the support network of a newspaper,  yours is a privileged position.  Whatever you do or say might put that privilege at risk.  Cole was eventually not employed by the Star (you can't be "fired" when you're a freelancer because you do not strictly speaking have a job) ostensibly for (overly?) actively supporting Black Lives Matter in Toronto.  Was his dismissal an example of "cancel culture"?   Or was it just a plain, old-fashioned case of being "let go," "your services are no longer required," "pack up your pencils," "here's your hat, what's your hurry!"?

Reductio ad absurdum

According to the Pulitzer laureate's reductio ad absurdum discourse, "cancel culture" is about hyper-sensitivity and alleged triggers. (Consider Do No Harm.) He goes on to suggest, ironically, that the name "Washington" should be changed because George Washington was a slave owner and a tobacco farmer. He might want to reconsider his irony (see Avoid Irony and What Is Irony?). In my country, Canada, the name and statues of our founding Prime Minister, John A. MacDonald, are under attack for his role in establishing residential schools and policies of assimilation of indigenous peoples.

The Washington Rednecks?

The Washington football team will eventually be renamed but no, the new name won't and shouldn't be the "Rednecks."  Such a switch would just be changing one racist epithet for another.  In fact, it could be rightly argued that the name "Washington Rednecks" would be a celebration of racism.  However, the question is an interesting thought experiment.  How many privileged white people would be happy with the choice of the name?  We need look no further than Jeff Foxworthy's early"redneck" jokes to get the gist of the expression's unflattering intentions. (As in:  "You might just be a redneck if you go to your family reunion to pick up women.")

However, the expression "redneck" (like "redskin") seems etymologically neutral.  A white farmer's red neck from a hard day working in the fields might even be considered an icon of pride.  Certainly, many white people have taken on the appellation as an object of pride.

People who are revolted by "cancel culture" and mocking of sensitivity seem to be showing signs of hyper-sensitivity themselves.  Whatever Washington's new name turns out to be, as my guru wisely advises, "It's always better to err on the side of empathy."

Addendum

Apparently, the leading contender for the new name is the "DC Sentinels"--the same name used for the fictional NFL team in the movie The Replacements.